...Botswana Photos...

Sun 26th We walked over the border from Zimbabwe into Botswana, changed vehicles and drove a further 20 mins to Kasane airport for the 50 min flight to Lagoon camp.

The entire camp at Lagoon had very recently been refurbished and was looking great. It had been very good during our visit in 2007 but the rooms were now huge! After a light lunch we relaxed for a few hours until the start of our 'safari experience'.

Cheetah

By 15:30 we were fuelled up on a slice of pizza and a piece of pineapple cake and rearing to go. Carlos and James were our guide and tracker.

Cheetah

We left the camp and headed to a possible sighting of cheetah. It paid off and our first major sighting was 3 male cheetah.

Cheetah

Wildebeest

Following the cheetah we found a small herd of wildebeest and zebra.

Wildebeest

Wildebeest & Zeebra

Wildebeest

Elephants

We then came across a small herd of elephants.

Our Room

Our room at Lagoon.

Our Room

The rooms had been built in a line along the edge of the river bank. Although here were only 6 rooms in the camp, each was so large that it meant we had quite a walk to reach our room!

Red Billed Hornbill

Sundowners

The sun soon reached the horizon and we parked up for our 'sundowners'. As we had our drinks a herd of around 20 elephants walked past within about 50m.

The night safari proved uneventful. We returned to camp for our evening meal. The sky was amazingly clear. The only clouds in the sky were those of smoke rising from bushfires over the boarder in Namibia.

Giraffe

Mon 27th A hot bowl of semolina helped to kick start the day. We spent the entire drive tracking the cheetah from the night before. Despite travelling a huge amount off-road we were not able to catch up with them.

Giraffe

Highlights of the drive included seeing a 'tower' of giraffe (the collective noun when stationary which becomes a 'journey' of giraffe when moving), zebra and a tsessebe.

Elephants

That afternoon we continued in our search for the cheetah, encountering a herd of elephants on the way.

Me

Mum

Cheetah

When we finally caught up with the cheetah we watched the 3 of them for about 20 mins.

Cheetah

Rising smoke

As we looked North, we could see the smoke rising from bushfires over the boarder in Namibia.

Cheetah

As we watched the cheetah, they watched a small herd of zebra that had come out of the bushes behind us and had started grazing on the grass.

Cheetah

The dominant male slowely left the termite mound to circle around the zebra, leaving his 2 brothers to look on. After about 15 mins the lone male must have darted out of the bush since the zebra took off at high speed and were closely followed by the 2 remaining cheetah. It appeared as though the zebra had managed to get away this time.

Sundowners

At dinner Carlos told us of an amusing story about when he started out as a tracker. Although comfortable around the likes of big cats, he had a fear of elephants. On one of his first drives they encountered a large male that was blocking the road. They gave the elephant lots of space to move away but he was curious and started to move closer. The vehicle was full so Carlos had to remain on the tracker seat. He tried not to show any fear in front of the guests but was physically trembling, ready to jump off the bumper and onto a guest at a moments notice. The elephant raised its trunk towards him but moved over the bonnet and under the wheel arch. The heat and strong scent of the engine put him off and he moved away. But in the meantime, a second elephant had come from behind and lowered his trunk down to smell the guests in the back of the vehicle. Thankfully all ended well...

Morning Mist

Tue 28th Our last morning at Lagoon. We ate breakfast around the fire, watching the mist rise off the water in front of the camp.

Morning Mist

The morning game drive doubled as a transfer to Labala.

Elephants

Roan Antelope

We also saw a pair of Roan Antelope which are known to be very timid.

Giraffe

Landscape

In this photo you can just about make out a tree growing from the top of a termite mound. It's a really common sight as many animals such as birds will leave seeds behind in their droppings while making use of the vantage point offered by the termite mound.

Late Morning Tea

Tammay, James, Mum, Dad, Myself and Carlos enjoying tea and coffee along with a few snacks!

Landscape

Onward to Lebala

The onward drive to Labala.

Wildebeest

Buffalo

A highlight of the onward drive to was encountering a large herd of buffalo.

Rutting Buffalo

Two of the males were rutting.

Rutting Buffalo

The clashing horns gave out loud cracks as they came together.

Rutting Buffalo

Buffalo and Zeebra

The rest of the herd seemed to be content to graze.

Our Room

After checking in at Labala we took our afternoon siesta but at around 2:30 I was woken by a rumbling and shaking. A number of the other guests & staff also felt it so I'm fairly sure it was an earthquake!

Our room

The rooms had very recently been built and were of a very high standard. Each room had a balcony over looking the plain. I watched as a herd of nearly 20 elephants passed by.

Elephants

Our guide at Labala was Alex and our tracker was Julius. During our afternoon drive we hoped to see a pride of 8 lions that had been spotted the day before. We did pick up their tracks but didn't have time to catch up with them before sunset. A highlight of the drive was finding a herd of about 20 elephants (which I'm sure were the same ones I'd seen passing by our room a couple of hours ealier).

Elephants

We parked up about a 100m from them and turned off the engine.

Elephants

As they grazed on the grass they walked right up to our vehicle and passed right by.

Elephants

Getting stuck in!

Elephants

As you can see they came quite close to the vehicle before moving around us.

Elephants

One of the youngsters seemed to get left behind by the group and when he realised he was alone he charged straight for us, ears flapping and trumpeting away.

Elephants

As he approached he realised we were not moving so slowed down and walked around us.

Elephants

He sheepishly side-stepped his way behind a bush.

Zeebra

Elephants

We took our sundowners on the edge of a large lake. Another herd of elephants were grazing amongst the trees nearby, one had a tiny calf who couldn't have been more than a month old. While finishing our drinks our tracker Julius noticed that one of the adult elephants was now laying on the ground sleeping underneath a large bush. Back at the camp we fell asleep with the hippos splashing around and letting out their characteristic belly laughs just in front of our room.

During the night (our first at Labala), a herd of elephants decended on the camp. They made a huge amount of noise as they ate their way through the trees around our rooms. They woke me up and kept me awake for at least half an hour. I knew very well and mum would also have been woken up by the comotion and would have been getting increasingly worried that the elephants were about to demolish their room. Unfortunately there wasn't anything I could do to reassure them!

Breakdown in the Bush

Wed 29th Shortly after leaving camp our vehicle broke down and despite the best efforts of Alex and Julius they were not able to fix it.

Eventually the mechanic arrived but he was only able to make a temporary fix.

Breakdown in the Bush

We made the most of it and had a few more cups of tea and coffee.

Breakdown in the Bush

Tammay felt it was a good opportunity to take out the BlackBerry and catch up on a few emails.

Breakdown in the Bush

Taking the opportunity to take photos of eachother taking photos!

Breakdown in the Bush

Owl

As the guys worked away on the the vehicle an owl looked on. TJ called out to the owl and it duly responded.

Yellow Billed Hornbill

Wildebeest

They managed a temporary fix so we drove on and found a small herd of wildebeest next to a watering hole. We waited a short while for a replacement vehicle to arrive.

Wildebeest

Lions

Although we lost about an hour and a half another group had come across a pride of 3 lions (2 sub-adult males and one female) so we luckily didn't need to spend time tracking them. The 3 were part of a much larger 17 strong pride that had moved closer to the camp.

Lions

Tiring work...

Lions

Bright light!

Lions

We hoped to see the large pride on our way back but they had already moved on.

Zeebra Kill

During our afternoon drive we quickly caught up with the main pride and found they had just made a kill - a zebra. We spent some time with the group, watching them feast on the large meal.

Zeebra Kill

The pride contained a number of cubs of different ages.

Zeebra Kill

I watched as the lion on the right licked at the zebra's ear... he then started to tear into the flesh.

Zeebra Kill

This little one ate so much he couldn't even lie down properly!

Zeebra Kill

As we moved away we found that they had also killed a young zebra that lay just 50m away and had thus far remained untouched.

Elephant

Shortly after leaving the lions we encountered this elephant in an atmospheric scene.

Giraffe

Performing an arkward manouver in order to take a drink.

Giraffe

Giant Eagle Owl

The night drives were a little shorter and less eventful than compared with our previous visit.

Zeebra Kill

At the end of our drive we returned to the site to find them finishing off both zebra.

Zeebra Kill

By this time their bellies were even more bloated!

Zeebra Kill

On our walk back to our room following dinner we heard the call of the hyena.

The Milky Way

After dinner I set up my camera on its tripod and took a few shots of the Milky Way – the Galaxy we call home.

Breakfast at Lebala

Thur 30th Our last morning at Labala. We sat around the fire with our warm drinks and porridge.

Wildebeest

Lions

The 3 sub-adult lions we had seen the previous morning had now rejoined with most of the adults of the larger group and soon after leaving camp we found 6 of them, most likely on their way to rejoin the rest of the pride.

Lions

We watched as two of them stopped to drink.

A kill!

We spotted this Lilac Brested Roller with a recent 'kill' in its beak &ndash a stick instect...

Giraffe

Zeebra

Morning tea

Alex spent some time highlighting the animal tracks he could see in the dust and telling us some stories.

Ready to go!

Tammay, myself and my parents back in the Uri after our morning tea and coffee.

Zebra

The Flight to Little Kwara

After brunch we took the 25 minute flight from Labala to Little Kwara.

The Flight to Little Kwara

Dad got to sit up front.

The Flight to Little Kwara

A view over the delta.

Our Room

The rooms were built on stilts so that the animals could walk beneath.

Our Room

There were no locks on the doors and the monkeys had worked out how to open the doors (they would at least wait until you had left). As a result the staff had fitted the door with chains – I wonder how long it will take the monkeys to figure those out!

Afternoon Tea

Our guide at Little Kwara was TJ and our tracker was Mike. That afternoon we went in search of any leopard and hyena. Although we found tracks we did not find the animals. On our drive we saw a couple of side stripe jackals, a family of baboons and 3 giant eagle owls.

Tsessebe

Zebra

Side Stripe Jackal

Baboon

Landscape

Sunset

Startrails

After dinner I again set up my camera on its tripod but this time decided to go for a long exposure to see startrails. You can also see the trail left by an airplane flying overhead.

Hippo

Fri 1st The weather was getting much warmer so getting out of bed at 6:10 wasn't so painful. Just as we left camp we saw our first hippo on dry land – but he soon made a dash back to the water. During the rest of the drive we only saw general game.

Ostrich

A male ostrich about to break into a run.

Ostrich

A female ostrich. The male sits on their eggs at night and has black feathers in order to be more camouflaged while the female is grey and sits on the eggs during the day

Impala

Giraffe

Under Water

There was far more water on the ground compared with our last visit. A number of the tracks, particularly near the runway, were under quite a depth of water.

Impala

Honey Badger

During our afternoon drive we saw this Honey Badger.

Startrails

After dinner I set up my camera on its tripod once again and took another startrail photo.

Saddle Billed Stork

Lion

Sat 2nd A really good morning tracking the lions we had heard roaring over night. After some excellent tracking and extensive off-roading we finally caught up with 2 adult male lions. We spent about 90 minutes with them.

Lion

Me

Tammay took this shot of me lying on the floor of the Land Cruiser. Because the Kwando vehicles had no sides it meant you could get right down to the eye-level of the big cats.

Lion

Morning Tea

We moved to what felt like a very short distance away (although I'm sure it was safe!) for our morning tea.

Zebra

As we chatted a small herd of zebra walked past.

Zebra

More Water

Our evening drive was far less eventful, we barely saw any general game... We did however have an elephant drop by the camp after we finished dinner! It was probably the same elephant that ended up waking me up that night by breaking branches outside our room.

Red Lechwe

Tammay managed to get this perfectly timed shot as he came out of the water.

Red Lechwe

Impala

Lions

Sun 3rd Our last day in Africa and our last drive. We went out in search of the leopard but happened across lion tracks. We soon found the 2 adult males from the previous day.

Lions

We did then find the tracks of a leopard dragging a carcass. We also found some blood on the ground but despite the best efforts of our tracker and guide they were not able to find it.

We left Little Kwara and flew to Maun where we connected to a flight to Johannesburg. From there it was another night flight back to London.